Organizational Behavior and Leadership Case Analysis, Research Paper Example

Performing a quality performance evaluation is a key component to the success of any business situation.  These are excellent tools that enable supervisors to appropriately evaluate the work that employees are producing and in the manner in which the work is produced.  For instance, an employee’s attitude, organization and attention to detail are common focuses for effective performance evaluations.  Although a strong performance evaluation can effectively communicate an employee’s strengths and areas of opportunity, a poor performance evaluation can easily cause problems in the workplace and create an uncomfortable situation that is not only unproductive but can be highly detrimental to the success of the organization, the team and the employee.  Within the example of the experienced engineer at the mid-size manufacturing plant, it is clear that the performance evaluations are not only beneficial for the supervisor and employee, but they have created hostility in the workplace and do not evaluate the employee on appropriate criteria to assess his performance on the job.

The current evaluation form for the organization has several major pitfalls that should be addressed in order to improve the evaluation effectiveness for this situation.  First of all, the evaluation form does not currently appear to have a set formula of standards for properly evaluating the quality of the work.  The employee is frustrated that the current supervisor and supervisory staff do not have enough knowledge to properly evaluate an engineer’s work.  This can be validated because the current form does not ask specific rating questions to determine areas of strength and opportunity for the employee or whether tasks were completed well.  Secondly, the current evaluation form includes a natural bias that has been built into the form and is clearly present given this situation.  The form is based largely on the supervisor’s opinion and personal observations without providing clear examples of the problems that exist.  For instance, the employee’s attitude is questioned and the neatness of his desk is two of the greatest areas of opportunity.  However, the form does not take into consideration the current relations that exist that have impacted the employee’s attitude from his co-workers playing jokes on him.  The form does not concentrate on the employee’s organization; instead, it merely concentrates on neatness which is a completely separate concept. Currently, the form is very ineffective because it does not accurately gauge the employee’s work ethic; it concentrates more on aesthetics and personal relationship with co-workers than production.

Oftentimes there are several types of bias that exist in the implementation of performance evaluation forms.  There is often a personal bias associated with the performance evaluation whereby an inherent conflict may exist between the supervisor and employee and is directly represented within the performance evaluation.  This type of personal bias is very common and must be removed to eliminate the ineffectiveness of the employee’s evaluation.  In addition, many performance evaluations for individual employees appear to maintain a significant pattern or trend.  If an employee performs well and is rated well, the following evaluation will likely present the same results.  On the other hand, if an employee performs poorly and is rated poorly but improves in the time between evaluations, many of the subsequent evaluations will still present a poor evaluation.  This error in the performance evaluations is known as the Matthew Effect (“Performance Appraisal”).  A final error or bias in the implementation of performance evaluations comes from ineffective follow-through.  Too many supervisors utilize performance evaluations out of a requirement by human resources and fail to follow through with what has been discussed personally between the supervisor and employee during the official evaluation meeting.  This suggests to the employee that the evaluation is not important and is a false requirement with no real meaning behind it.  Employees and supervisors need to understand the importance of this process for increasing productive and efficiency through describing areas of employee opportunity.

One of the suggestions that the supervisor is currently considering is to implement a new evaluation method that he has learned about called the 360 evaluation.  This method provides for an all-inclusive evaluation method whereby the employee is evaluated by the supervisor and co-workers on several key areas.  After all employees have provided confidential feedback to the supervisor, the supervisor and employee would sit down to discuss not only his views of the individual’s work but the entire team’s views.  Typically, employees view the 360 evaluation method as a more fair method “when they consider this process as opposed to being evaluated by an individual supervisor who has limited knowledge of what they do, they will begin to see the value in this type of evaluation” (Sparks par. 8).  By eliminating the personal bias of the individual supervisor, the evaluation method is more clear and effective in explaining the areas of opportunity for the employee.  However, this method can often be negative in that it enables the personal opinions of the co-workers to provide negative evaluations.  In many cases, personality conflicts or other conflicts between workers can negatively influence the workers’ evaluations, which is completely against the purpose and intent of the process.

Furthermore, it is important to include a common set of evaluation criteria for all employees.  Common standards provide a universal method that enables the evaluation of all employees to be uniform and potentially unbiased.  All of the same criteria will be evaluated for each employee, which ensures that the most important evaluation materials are revealed throughout the process.  Common standards also ensure that the evaluation does not stray from the main purpose of the activity, and it also reduces the ability for managers to include information that may not be critically important.  No employee is left out or exempt from the evaluation, and employees likely do not feel that the evaluation process is biased.  In summary, it is clear that common standards create a uniform format that is timely, organized and includes only the most important information for all employees without exemption.

There are three major evaluation methods that can often be utilized within a company or organization.  These methods are called Essay Method, Management by Objectives (MBO), and the Critical Incident Method.  Each method effectively analyzes the performance of an employee through the evaluation by a manager.  The essay method asks managers to clearly state employee strengths and weaknesses without using any qualitative format or evaluation system.  This is more of a narrative whereby the manager can tell the story of the employee’s overall performance.  This evaluation method allows the manager leniency in evaluation and does not clearly state what evaluation criteria are being utilized.  On the other hand, the MBO method is a quantitative method by which the manager sets specific goals for the employee to meet and then evaluates whether these goals have or have not been met.  This method focuses more on what performance tasks must be completed instead of concentrating on how they should be completed.  Therefore, the ultimate performance evaluation is whether or not the objectives were fully completed by the employee.  This evaluation system is very simple and clearly defined.  Finally, the Critical Incident Method analyzes the specific critical incidents that have occurred within the performance period for each employee.  These incidents are described by the manager and their importance is defined solely by the manager; therefore, many incidents may not be described or evaluated.  However, the goal of this method is to examine positive and negative incidents that have been critical to the success of the employee and the company.  Similar to the Essay Method, this method does not clearly define evaluation criteria and provides much leniency to the manager to conduct a proper evaluation.  There is also very little quantitative data being analyzed.

With this specific situation, there are several changes that can be made to improve the performance evaluation methods and increase the receptiveness that the engineering employee has to the overall process.  Currently, the method does not itemize job responsibilities and the effective work that is being produced by the employee.  Instead, the work is received with a “completed well” or “not completed well” rating and does not expound on any specific area where the employee could potentially improve.  Also, the current form does not include the input of fellow co-workers within the manufacturing team.  Although the employee has disagreements with many of his co-workers and vice versa, the confidential input of all employees will help eliminate the personal bias that the employee believes exists within the current evaluation method.  Finally, the evaluation method must also include an evaluation on the organizational skills, time management and work ethic that the employee maintains.  These are critical to determine how effect time is spent throughout the day and whether tasks are performed appropriately and in a timely manner.  All of these suggestions should be implemented to appropriately eliminate the ineffective nature of the current performance evaluation method and improve the employee’s receptiveness and overall acceptance of the responses for his annual evaluations.

References

“Performance Appraisal Bias Errors Employee Evaluation.” Archer North & Associates Performance Appraisal. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. <http://www.performance-appraisal.com/bias.htm>.

Sparks, Rick. “360 Performance Evaluation.” MissouriBusiness.net: Missouri Business Development Program. Sept. 2002. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. <http://www.missouribusiness.net/SBTDC/docs/360_performance_eval.asp>.

Weiss, David J., Kristin Brennan, Rick Thomas, Alex Kirlik, and Sarah M. Miller. “Criteria for Performance Evaluation.” Judgment and Decision Making 4.2 (2009): 164-74. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. <http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/journal/ccw/ccw.pdf>.